10 Dec
1998
10 Dec
'98
3:55 a.m.
Somewhat apropos the recent thread about sending mains power
through modems, can anyone tell me if it's legal or illegal
here in the States to send data in the audio of television or
radio? Certainly there would be bandwidth and therefore speed
limitations, but does the FCC allow this? Is it legal in other
countries?
- John
10 Dec
10 Dec
5:35 a.m.
Somewhat apropos the recent thread about sending mains
power
through modems, can anyone tell me if it's legal or illegal
here in the States to send data in the audio of television or
radio? Certainly there would be bandwidth and therefore speed
limitations, but does the FCC allow this? Is it legal in other
countries?
I guess it is perfect legal as long as you stay in band.
It is legal in Germany and we have (weiss Gott) a lot of
regulations. The WDR Computer Club (a TV and radio hobby
computer show of the WDR) this a lot of transmissions in
the mid 80s. AFAIR they also transmited programms using
the Teletext system - additional pages with binary
information have been inserted to distribute software.
But since programms started to grow beyond 1 to 10 KB,
the transmission times became unacceptabe - AFAIR the
bandwidth of teletext is less than two K-Byte per
second and they only could use some pages, since
'ordinary' TV viewers still wanted their information
pages transmited. On radio they cut of I think at 5
Minutes - so the maximum Programm was some 20 KB - all
transmission was done IN BAND, while via TV up to 200 KB
have been transmitted (in Austria at least).
At one time the stereo chanals (used as dual monao) have
also been used during the Show to transmit software - on
A (left) the regular sound was transmitted, while on B
(right) the software describen in the show was transmitted.
AFAIR the BBC did also transmit software thru teletext
pages (in GB).
Even in the DDR (east Germany) radio was used to transmit
home computer programms. I have several recordings from
DTF99 computer shows - at this times the whole east German
comuter hobbyist nation was recording the shows ... at
least that is what they told me :)
Gruss
hans
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
7:35 a.m.
TouchTones(tm) are used all the time in satellite feeds to cue local
programming. If you get a satellite dish (one of the big ones) and download
directly (and you find an downlink that isn't encrypted these days) you
will hear them all the time. There are codes for "insert your commercial
here" and "breaking news story" etc. They cue automatic switchers at the
local end.
--Chuck
At 08:55 AM 12/10/98 -0600, you wrote:
Somewhat apropos the recent thread about sending mains power
through modems, can anyone tell me if it's legal or illegal
here in the States to send data in the audio of television or
radio? Certainly there would be bandwidth and therefore speed
limitations, but does the FCC allow this? Is it legal in other
countries?
- John
8:10 a.m.
At 10:35 AM 12/10/98 -0800, Chuck McManis wrote:
TouchTones(tm) are used all the time in satellite feeds
to cue local
programming.
Yes, I've heard those - although they're in the audio, they're
supposed to be stripped before the audience gets the signal, no?
With the advent of software modems and ubiquitous sound cards,
you'd think we'd see more occurences of "hold your microphone
up to the speaker (or earpiece) to receive data". Or a little
data in the audio track on a CD - it's today's equivalent of
"Paul is dead," no?
- John
8:37 a.m.
I got just two words for you:
Actimates Barney
In this case it is "have your toy 'look' at the television set..."
At 01:10 PM 12/10/98 -0600, you wrote:
At 10:35 AM 12/10/98 -0800, Chuck McManis wrote:
TouchTones(tm) are used all the time in satellite
feeds to cue local
programming.
Yes, I've heard those - although they're in the audio, they're
supposed to be stripped before the audience gets the signal, no?
With the advent of software modems and ubiquitous sound cards,
you'd think we'd see more occurences of "hold your microphone
up to the speaker (or earpiece) to receive data". Or a little
data in the audio track on a CD - it's today's equivalent of
"Paul is dead," no?
- John
8:44 a.m.
At 11:37 AM 12/10/98 -0800, Chuck McManis wrote:
I got just two words for you:
Actimates Barney
In this case it is "have your toy 'look' at the television set..."
Well, as I understand it, the purple one's "TV Pack" includes a special
RF transmitter that grabs a signal from specially encoded videotapes
or even the PBS show. Where did they stuff the signal - in the video
or the audio? If audio, at what frequency? Or is it just in the
second audio channel, like bilingual programming?
Does anyone remember any pre-BBS-era, pre-Internet attempts to send
modem tones over US radio or television programming?
- John
9 a.m.
On Thu, 10 Dec 1998, John Foust wrote:
Does anyone remember any pre-BBS-era, pre-Internet
attempts to send
modem tones over US radio or television programming?
I've got two words for you, too:
Packet Radio.
OK, it wasn't part of "normal" programming and it wasn't pre-BBS (there
were barely pre-BBS microcomputers), but I couldn't resist another
two-worder. :-)
-- Doug
17 Dec
17 Dec
8:40 a.m.
Does anyone
remember any pre-BBS-era, pre-Internet attempts to send
modem tones over US radio or television programming?
I've got two words for you, too:
Packet Radio. 
5:17 p.m.
On Thu, 17 Dec 1998, William Donzelli wrote:
Packet Radio??!?!! Think back, man - the U.S. Navy was doing this in the
1930s...
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
Ummm, Bill... you mean the Navy had AX.25 protcol damn near 40
years before Bolt Beranek and Newman....?
Now *Baudot* Teletype over radio...maybe, and I'd like to see that
document, since I love the "green keys" and run RTTY more than voice,
but AFAIK, the Tuscon Amateur Packet Radio club first transmitted
AX.25 over radio in the late 70s / early 80s, and did so only after
the advent of easily-available microprocessors to implement the
Packet Assembler/Disassembler function.
Cheers and Best of the Season to All:
John
Does anyone remember any pre-BBS-era, pre-Internet
attempts to send
modem tones over US radio or television programming?
I've got two words for you, too:
Packet Radio.
18 Dec
18 Dec
2:51 a.m.
> > Does anyone remember any pre-BBS-era,
pre-Internet attempts to send
> > modem tones over US radio or television programming?
> I've got two words for you, too:
> Packet Radio.
Packet Radio??!?!! Think back, man - the U.S. Navy was
doing this in the
1930s...
Packet radio ? In the 30s ? This is a packet switching network
thru a single chanal with halve duplex connections. To do this
at least micro coded controllers with a storage of at least one
packet are needed - in the 30s ? Maybe you reffer to wireless
teletype communication with id compare - I remember an article
about such a thin done in Germany in the early 30s - any trans-
mitted char was preceded by a codenumber of the reciver station
and only the addressed station did print the character. But it's
still not packet radio, since colision was not detected (other
than by getting the wrong result) and not permited. It was just
a way to share a single chanal.
Gruss
H.
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
5:02 a.m.
Packet radio ? In the 30s ? This is a packet switching
network
thru a single chanal with halve duplex connections.
OK, poor wording on my part...
The idea of transmitting modem tones over the radio (yes, even the
broadcast bands) is nothing new. Back in the 1930s the U.S. Navy was
playing around with the idea, trying to work it into their communications
systems, but did not have a great amount of success until 1944 or so. By
then the system had evolved into quite a monster, with quite a bit of it
being automated. "Routing" as we know it was still manually done and
messages were generally not broken into "packets". One very interesting
aspect is that the radioteletype nets were integrated with the landline
nets using things called "Land Line Control Units". These allowed an
operator to use a distant radio site to contact a station not on the
landline (i.e., a ship) in a completely automated fashion - the radio
sites could be left unmanned if need be.
My point is that transmitting digital data over the land or air is really
a very old idea - most of what we know as networking theory these days was
formulated by the government and telephone companies long ago.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
7:02 a.m.
> Packet radio ? In the 30s ? This is a packet
switching network
> thru a single chanal with halve duplex connections.
My point is that transmitting digital data over the
land or air is really
a very old idea - most of what we know as networking theory these days was
formulated by the government and telephone companies long ago.
Ok, but this is true for almost all things - when they
come to broad audience, there is at least some 30 to
50 years of thinking and development before - Telephone,
networking, computers, cars, steam engine, what ever you
want.
Fun fact, in this weeks edition of Der Spiegel (a weekly
German newsmagazine) there is an artikle about modern/
future communication and integration of different ways
(voice, data, video, etc.). At one point they try to tell
the advantage of using an internet style network for
voice, instead of classic phone system. In the example
they tell that still today any phone connection depends
on a seperate, switched thru line, and an acordingly
seperate chanal - Just ignoring the fact that all lines
between exchanges are already digital, and even before
ISDN exchange to exchange connection have been build
as time or chanel multiplexing over single wires. In
Germany chanel multiplexing (I hope this is an under-
standable term) stared around 1950 - and time multiplexing
around 1970.
I don't know, if I should laugh or cry about this ignorance.
Only because they have stone age phones within their home
they belive the system behind is also stone age - and vice
versa ... *With an Pentium II chip all colours are brighter
and sounds are better ... '
Gruss
H.
--
Der Kopf ist auch nur ein Auswuchs wie der kleine Zeh.
H.Achternbusch
6:34 a.m.
Ok, but this is true for almost all things - when
they
come to broad audience, there is at least some 30 to
50 years of thinking and development before - Telephone,
networking, computers, cars, steam engine, what ever you
want.
Exactly! That is one of the reasons why I generally do not like "which
came first" arguments (plenty of those on this list!). Just about
everything has roots in something else.
Just ignoring the fact that all lines
between exchanges are already digital, and even before
ISDN exchange to exchange connection have been build
as time or chanel multiplexing over single wires.
And that the term "email" is a bit off as well, as nearly all Internet
traffic goes over fibre for over 99% of its way. Omail, maybe?
I don't know, if I should laugh or cry about this
ignorance.
Only because they have stone age phones within their home
they belive the system behind is also stone age - and vice
versa ... *With an Pentium II chip all colours are brighter
and sounds are better ... '
Generally, history revisionists are full of bunk, but there is a slight
thread of truth to what some of them say. It only takes one loudmouth
marketing person to start a campaign that becomes the "truth" in a short
time.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
10 Dec
10 Dec
10:27 a.m.
New subject: The Purple One (was Modem tones over television or radio)
>I got just two words for you:
> Actimates Barney
>In this case it is "have your toy
'look' at the television set..."
Well, as I understand it, the purple one's
"TV Pack" includes a special
RF transmitter that grabs a signal from specially encoded videotapes
or even the PBS show. Where did they stuff the signal - in the video
or the audio? If audio, at what frequency? Or is it just in the
second audio channel, like bilingual programming?
Just to get this right - You are talkig about the Purple
Monster (Barney loves you - I was at the Universal Studios
LA some 4 or 5 years ago with a friend when they just had
a special Barney feature around the park - my friend still
goes crazy when I mention 'Barney loves you' :) - so this
is about the purple Godzilla guy and there is a 'toy' that
works with some effects of the show ? What does it do ?
What effects ? What triggers ? Whats the price ? Or is it
already vintage ? I NEED TO KNOW - the perfect gift for
my friend (together wit a fiting barney video).
Gruss
Hans
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
9:54 a.m.
New subject: OT: Re: The Purple One (was Modem tones over television or radio)
Lots of people in the states sell them, its called the "Actimates" Barney.
As I understood it the toy "saw" signals in the form of IR coded pulses in
the video and responded appropriately. There are a couple of groups on the
net who have hacked the toy to give the dinosaur an extended, if somewhat
less refined, vocabulary.
--Chuck
At 09:28 PM 12/10/98 +0001, you wrote:
>I got just
two words for you:
> Actimates Barney
>In this case it is "have your toy
'look' at the television set..."
Well, as I understand it, the purple one's
"TV Pack" includes a special
RF transmitter that grabs a signal from specially encoded videotapes
or even the PBS show. Where did they stuff the signal - in the video
or the audio? If audio, at what frequency? Or is it just in the
second audio channel, like bilingual programming?
Just to get this right - You are talkig about the Purple
Monster (Barney loves you - I was at the Universal Studios
LA some 4 or 5 years ago with a friend when they just had
a special Barney feature around the park - my friend still
goes crazy when I mention 'Barney loves you' :) - so this
is about the purple Godzilla guy and there is a 'toy' that
works with some effects of the show ? What does it do ?
What effects ? What triggers ? Whats the price ? Or is it
already vintage ? I NEED TO KNOW - the perfect gift for
my friend (together wit a fiting barney video).
Gruss
Hans
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
11:04 a.m.
New subject: OT: Re: The Purple One (was Modem tones over television or radio)
Date sent: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 12:54:05 -0800
Send reply to: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis(a)freegate.com>
To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Subject: OT: Re: The Purple One (was Modem tones over television or
radio)
Lots of people in the states sell them, its called the
"Actimates" Barney.
As I understood it the toy "saw" signals in the form of IR coded pulses in
the video and responded appropriately. There are a couple of groups on the
net who have hacked the toy to give the dinosaur an extended, if somewhat
less refined, vocabulary.
Any URL ? I did a quick search, but only comercial sites (like MS:
http://microsoft.com./products/hardware/actimates/barney/default.htm )
showed up - and I got a strange feeling reading about what this
toy is intended to do:
<quote>
See what your child can learn with Actimates Barney!
Cooperation
Good Citizenship
Following Directions
...
</quote>
Brrrrrrr.... Brave new world.
Hans
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
11:34 a.m.
New subject: OT: Re: The Purple One (was Modem tones over television or radio)
At 12:54 PM 12/10/98 -0800, Chuck McManis wrote:
Lots of people in the states sell them, its called the
"Actimates" Barney.
As I understood it the toy "saw" signals in the form of IR coded pulses in
the video and responded appropriately.
<http://microsoft.com./products/hardware/actimates/tv/default.htm>
says it's a radio transmitter. I don't know how you'd reliably
transmit IR from a TV screen.
Brightness, maybe, like a DataLink watch. Come to think of it, the
first "dildonics" product for the web works like that: a little sensor
suction-cupped to the screen modulated a vibrator.
But really, I try to keep this on-topic for the CCC ML. :-)
- John
12:02 p.m.
New subject: OT: Re: The Purple One (was Modem tones over television or radio)
At 12:54 12/10/98 -0800, Chuck McManis wrote:
Lots of people in the states sell them, its called the
"Actimates" Barney.
As I understood it the toy "saw" signals in the form of IR coded pulses in
IR??? I don't think the red phosphor on the CRT screen emits anything in
the IR range. If it did, the electron beam hitting the red phosphor would
still emit visible light too and there might be an apparent flickering
image. Somewhere around in my color TV archives I think I've got a
technical bulletin from RCA on their color picture tube phosphors which
could verify the spectral output. (RCA developed the first tri-color CRT to
work with their electronic color system introduced in 1953.)
My guess would be that a single scan frame out of the 30 frames-per-second
(in the NTSC standard) picture signal would be blanked at a rate that the
toy's electronics would decode as specific commands. Usually, the 1 frame
missed out of 30 is not noticed by the human eye depending upon the light
saturation of the scene transmitted.
the video and responded appropriately. There are a
couple of groups on the
net who have hacked the toy to give the dinosaur an extended, if somewhat
less refined, vocabulary.
Oooh hoo hoo! I can imagine the fun which ensues:)
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/
1:49 p.m.
On Thu, 10 Dec 1998, Chuck McManis wrote:
TouchTones(tm) are used all the time in satellite
feeds to cue local
FYI, the phrase "touch tones" is not trademarked by anyone anymore. I
don't know that it ever was, but the misconception is that it at least
still is. It's not.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always being hassled by the man.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 12/07/98]
5:32 p.m.
Sam Ismail wrote:
On Thu, 10 Dec 1998, Chuck McManis wrote:
Never was that I know of. And if it had been, we'd have heard
something about a lawsuit.
--
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram@cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
WARNING: The Attorney General has determined that Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms can be hazardous to your health -- and get away with it.
TouchTones(tm) are used all the time in satellite
feeds to cue local
FYI, the phrase "touch tones" is not trademarked by anyone anymore. I
don't know that it ever was, but the misconception is that it at least
still is. It's not. 
8:58 p.m.
Chuck wrote:
TouchTones(tm) are used all the time in satellite
feeds to cue local
Sam wrote:
FYI, the phrase "touch tones" is not
trademarked by anyone anymore. I
don't know that it ever was, but the misconception is that it at least
still is. It's not.
Ward wrote:
Never was that I know of. And if it had been,
we'd have heard
something about a lawsuit.
In the United States, Touchtone was a registered trademark of AT&T. I'm
not sure when they gave it up; it may have been at the time of the
divestiture. A query of the trademark database reveals seven current
registered trademarks incorporating the word touchtone:
Touchtone Invest
Fidelity Touchtone Xpress
Touchtone Xpress
Touchtone Jobsline
Touchtone Rentsline
Touchtone Transportation
Touchtone Trader
The last of these was the earliest filed, on March 26, 1992, so I think
it's a safe bet that AT&T gave up the trademark before that date.
In some countries Touchtone is still a trademark of the applicable telephone
company or agency. For example, in the UK it is a registered trademark of
British Telecommunications PLC:
http://www.labs.bt.com/projects/voice/talk/glossary.htm
Eric
11 Dec
11 Dec
7:24 a.m.
Sam wrote:
> FYI, the phrase "touch tones" is not trademarked by anyone anymore. I
> don't know that it ever was, but the misconception is that it at least
> still is. It's not.
Ward wrote:
> Never was that I know of. And if it had been, we'd have heard
> something about a lawsuit.
In the United States, Touchtone was a registered
trademark of AT&T. I'm
not sure when they gave it up; it may have been at the time of the
divestiture. A query of the trademark database reveals seven current
registered trademarks incorporating the word touchtone:
Touchtone Invest
Fidelity Touchtone Xpress
Touchtone Xpress
Touchtone Jobsline
Touchtone Rentsline
Touchtone Transportation
Touchtone Trader
The last of these was the earliest filed, on March 26,
1992, so I think
it's a safe bet that AT&T gave up the trademark before that date.
In some countries Touchtone is still a trademark of
the applicable telephone
company or agency. For example, in the UK it is a registered trademark of
British Telecommunications PLC:
AFAIK these trademarks have only been non exclusive.
For Trademarks there is a distinction between exclusive
and non exclusive use - to name a easy to understand
US based example, there is the trademark 'White House'
(or Whitehouse or whitehouse) - this trademark is at
least owned by 10 different companies (including the
famous whitehouse.com), but non of them exclusive.
Trademarks are normaly only given for a special product
class - for example, a PTC can trademark Touchtone
for their telephones, but a musical instrument company
can also trademark the same name for lets day a drum
computer. Sometimes a trademark could also be non
exclusive within a group. Gerneral Trademarks are
rare (or should be, but most trademark agancies today
grant them to easy - especialy if a BIG company wants
to take it).
Gruss
Hans
(not a lawyer - just a burned child)
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
10 Dec
10 Dec
10:21 a.m.
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11 Dec
11 Dec
7:12 a.m.
Years ago (1984?) in the UK there were computer
programs transmitted by
the BBC using a Dutch format called Basicode.
I remember staying up late on several occasions,
recording off the radio
onto a cassette tape and loading it onto my old Model 1 TRS-80.
Oh yes. It was called the 'chip shop takeaway
service' :-). Awful pun...
Does anyone else here remember this?
Not from GB, but Basicode has also been popular in Germany,
later on combined with Supertape format to get a comon tape
exchange for a real lot of homecomputers. Also most of the
porgramms that have been published using a bar code printout
in magazines used Basicode, to reach as many readers as
possible.
Gruss
Hans
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
9354
days inactive
9362
days old
23 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cfandt＠netsync.net -
cmcmanis＠freegate.com -
dastar＠ncal.verio.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
gram＠cnct.com -
Hans.Franke＠mch20.sbs.de -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
jpl15＠netcom.com -
william＠ans.net -
yowza＠yowza.com